Nosocomial infections, “hospital acquired infections” and/or “healthcare associated infections” (HAIs) are infections that otherwise uninfected patients sometimes acquire when receiving medical treatment in a healthcare facility. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control (CDC) estimates that HAIs account for about 1.7 million infections and 99,000 related deaths per year.
The cause of HAIs is often cross-contamination in the hospital. For example, when an improperly sterilized medical device (e.g., an endoscope) or improperly disinfected equipment (e.g., bedrails or x-ray machines) remain contaminated with pathogens and then are placed in contact with an otherwise uninfected patient. Although causation may be obvious, mitigating the problem is often not so simple. Without knowing the specific equipment that was contaminated, countless pieces of equipment would need to be randomly and almost continuously cleaned and sanitized. Such a cleaning effort would take enormous resources, leaving even less time for actual medical procedures. Further, even surfaces identified as presently contaminated may be contaminated again just moments after cleaning and sanitizing the surfaces, resulting in the whole process being futile.
The foodservice industry also has its share of disease, such as in the form of food borne illness. One program exists to identify where in a food service establishment the likely sources of contamination exist. The program is referred to as HACCP (Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points) and is a systematic preventative approach to food safety. However, the program, although diligent and structured, merely identifies the obvious ways to control pathogens, namely employee hand washing and the rigorous separation between uncooked and cooked foods before, during and after preparation.
In spite of the recent diligence to reduce the HAIs problem in the healthcare profession, and the existence of the HACCP preventative approach to pathogen control in the foodservice industry, what is still needed in both healthcare and foodservice is a system and method for identifying where pathogens reside in a facility at any given time. Moreover, a need exists to know which surfaces are the critical transfer points based on actual pathogen presence and transfer routes. Further, the need still exists for improved methods for coating such contaminated surfaces once identified such that pathogen transfer over time is eliminated entirely.